This is not kernel related. But, I believe that it could become so ifthis closed-standard IO technology becomes a standard. Frankly, I'm sodisturbed by it that I can't even discuss it. Someone please tell me thisis a joke or I'm reading it wrong.

The following appeared in the Corvallis LUG mailing list.It seems worth forwarding, as things like this need to concernfreeware developers/users/advocates everywhere. There are times we need to be better politicians.You see Bill Gates playing golf with the President and Vice President.However, you rarely see Linus, Richard Stallman, Richie, Thompson,or any other technically innovative people doing this.

---------- Forwarded message ----------Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:48:15 -0700 (PDT)From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu>Reply-To: rre-maintainers@weber.ucsd.eduTo: rre@weber.ucsd.eduSubject: The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software?Resent-Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 08:06:19 -0700Resent-From: (John Sechrest) <sechrest@peak.org>Resent-To: lug@peak.org[This is forwarded from permission from the debian-devel mailing list. As the RRE subscriber who forwarded it explained, "Bruce Perens is the project leader and chair of Software in the Public Interest, the nonprofitorganization formed to support a commercial quality free distribution ofLinux." See www.debian.org.]

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE).Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below.You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not usethe "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructionsfor (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The i2o Bus: A Conspiracy Against Free Software?

Bruce Perens (bruce@pixar.com)Wed, 16 Jul 97 11:40 PDT

Check out http://www.i2osig.org/ "i2o" is a developing "non-proprietary"standard for high-performance computer peripherals. Unfortunately, it's aclosed standard, it requires a NDA, and you need a license to developsoftware for it. Their terms are:

Membership is $5000/year. You can't develop software or hardware for it without being a member. You can't disclose source code for your drivers. You must stop making hardware or software for it if you lose membership. Members can vote out other members.

The backers of this are Microsoft, Novell, Hewlet-Packard, and NETFrame.It looks as if the i2o agreements are deliberately written to exclude freesoftware.

I suspect that if i2o peripherals become popular, free operating systemswill be locked out from running on PC hardware.